Amateur 3D Printing

[Amberdrake]

That is impressive!

My Ender is a frankenmonster now.

I love it but if i have money for another printer that isnt second hand cheapie. Ill be going for prusa mini, the size is perfect for most of my needs and it's got the prusa support behind it.

They do. 
 

Had to print 60 parts for a work project and was cheaper to buy the prusa and print it my self than to have it printed in SA.  Took about 3 weeks printing 24/7. Not one problem or miss print. 

[ABrooks]

Well, the Dragon has landed.

 

 

Assembly was super easy. I had some initial trouble with the z height. The leadscrew was updated but not the firmware so my first prints was a mess.

 

I am busy printing some brackets. One to hold your phone and the second to hang my earphones on my desk frame. I designed it in Fusion 360. I have some Autodesk Inventor experience and use Autocad daily so not really a learning curve.

 

 

I still have some issues to sort out. Bed leveling for one and I still get some stringing. I downloaded Chep's (Youtube) profiles and they seem to be working well as a start.

[ABrooks]

I was a bit sceptical on why I should go for the ender 5 as opposed to the ender 3 if the parts are similar. after my first print I realised why once I saw the movement of the frame and table caused by the stepper motors.

[Pure Savage]

Must say, I dont think there is anything amatuer about 3D printing, all looks pretty pro to me.

[Rocket-Boy]

I was a bit sceptical on why I should go for the ender 5 as opposed to the ender 3 if the parts are similar. after my first print I realised why once I saw the movement of the frame and table caused by the stepper motors.

Yeah the 5 is nice and solid.

Did you get the one with the silent drivers?

[ABrooks]

Yeah the 5 is nice and solid.

Did you get the one with the silent drivers?

When I ordered they only had the 5pro in stock. I figured I would probably upgrade the extruder and ptfe tube at some point. I only realised later that it has silent stepper drivers so I am quite happy about that. The fans are quite loud so that is going to be my first thing to tackle.

[Rocket-Boy]

When I ordered they only had the 5pro in stock. I figured I would probably upgrade the extruder and ptfe tube at some point. I only realised later that it has silent stepper drivers so I am quite happy about that. The fans are quite loud so that is going to be my first thing to tackle.

Yup the cooling fans are the only sound you hear on that.

My advice would be to upgrade the firmware to TH3D and enable the mesh leveling option.

It makes it a whole lot easier to level the bed and it moves the head to the correct place without needing to disable the steppers and having the bed drop.

[ABrooks]

Yup the cooling fans are the only sound you hear on that.

My advice would be to upgrade the firmware to TH3D and enable the mesh leveling option.

It makes it a whole lot easier to level the bed and it moves the head to the correct place without needing to disable the steppers and having the bed drop.

I'm still wrapping my head around how the whole firmware stuff works and what is safe to use. As I understand it the Ender 5 pro comes with the V1.15 board which has a bootloader flashed already. 

 

However, I am not sure how to proceed further. I have downloaded the TH3D zip file but that is about it. 

[Amberdrake]

3d Printing is Amatuer in the way we use it. There many players here that have computer programming knowledge and many that have some experience working metal and electronics. This basic level (ender3/5) just combines things. There more advanced less amatuer stuff, HP make colour layer printers. Also very sure CNC cutters (Laser/Milling) start going away from amature space quickly but even then still possible to be called amatuer.

 

Glad the Ender5 is going well! Firmware is a bit of a juggling session. It can make things really good or bad. It can also make you start wondering about whats the issue Mechanical or Software.

Also SD cards fail, I have 4 donald duck hangers that had tip of it not finished, On that note Shopping list now includes a 3d Pen, you can fix prints manually with epoxy painting or melting extra material in(used soldering iron and tried the friction weld one).

[ABrooks]

3d Printing is Amatuer in the way we use it. There many players here that have computer programming knowledge and many that have some experience working metal and electronics. This basic level (ender3/5) just combines things. There more advanced less amatuer stuff, HP make colour layer printers. Also very sure CNC cutters (Laser/Milling) start going away from amature space quickly but even then still possible to be called amatuer.

 

Glad the Ender5 is going well! Firmware is a bit of a juggling session. It can make things really good or bad. It can also make you start wondering about whats the issue Mechanical or Software.

Also SD cards fail, I have 4 donald duck hangers that had tip of it not finished, On that note Shopping list now includes a 3d Pen, you can fix prints manually with epoxy painting or melting extra material in(used soldering iron and tried the friction weld one).

 

Would it be possible to print the section you need and cut the section that failed on something like a band saw to glue them together?

[Rocket-Boy]

I'm still wrapping my head around how the whole firmware stuff works and what is safe to use. As I understand it the Ender 5 pro comes with the V1.15 board which has a bootloader flashed already. 

 

However, I am not sure how to proceed further. I have downloaded the TH3D zip file but that is about it. 

Yeah the V1.1.4 and V1.1.5 are the same thing, both have TMC2208 drivers.

It does have the bootloader flashed so its as easy as connecting a mini usb cable to it and running the bundled arduino studio.

You just need to find the mesh leveling option and enable it. It will make all of the difference in bed leveling because it moves the head to the correct locations to do the paper test.

 

You cant really use Marlin on those boards because they dont have enough memory but TH3D is a fork of Marlin.

[Rocket-Boy]

3d Printing is Amatuer in the way we use it. There many players here that have computer programming knowledge and many that have some experience working metal and electronics. This basic level (ender3/5) just combines things. There more advanced less amatuer stuff, HP make colour layer printers. Also very sure CNC cutters (Laser/Milling) start going away from amature space quickly but even then still possible to be called amatuer.

 

Glad the Ender5 is going well! Firmware is a bit of a juggling session. It can make things really good or bad. It can also make you start wondering about whats the issue Mechanical or Software.

Also SD cards fail, I have 4 donald duck hangers that had tip of it not finished, On that note Shopping list now includes a 3d Pen, you can fix prints manually with epoxy painting or melting extra material in(used soldering iron and tried the friction weld one).

SD cards definitely fail! I replaced the one that came with the printer quickly because it sucked.

I also setup Octoprint but it doesnt play well with the silent board and I had endless problems with failed prints when using it.

[ABrooks]

Yeah the V1.1.4 and V1.1.5 are the same thing, both have TMC2208 drivers.

It does have the bootloader flashed so its as easy as connecting a mini usb cable to it and running the bundled arduino studio.

You just need to find the mesh leveling option and enable it. It will make all of the difference in bed leveling because it moves the head to the correct locations to do the paper test.

 

You cant really use Marlin on those boards because they dont have enough memory but TH3D is a fork of Marlin.

 

Where do I find the Arduino studio? So best would be to just enable manual mesh bed leveling? I see Teaching Tech on Youtube has a video on bed leveling.

[ABrooks]

Where do I find the Arduino studio? So best would be to just enable manual mesh bed leveling? I see Teaching Tech on Youtube has a video on bed leveling.

 

Ok, I see now that it is included in the TH3D bundle. Will work through it tonight. 

 

Is the mesh bed leveling the operation where you set bed offsets to account for a warped bed?

[Rocket-Boy]

Ok, I see now that it is included in the TH3D bundle. Will work through it tonight. 

 

Is the mesh bed leveling the operation where you set bed offsets to account for a warped bed?

No it doesnt do the offsets but you can code them in, I havent really had a need to do that.

With the silent board they removed the manual leveling option from the stock firmware.

So that meant you had to disable steppers and then move the hotend around to use a piece of paper to check. The hassle comes in that the table will drop at some stage then you dont know where you started.

 

If you enable manual mesh leveling in TH3D then it moves the hotend to a bunch of spots on the bed and you just level accordingly, its so much more accurate that way.

[Amberdrake]

Would it be possible to print the section you need and cut the section that failed on something like a band saw to glue them together?

yes, you can semi guess where it failed and then print rest and glue the two. You would rarely try fixing anything other than a print that failed by running out of filament or clog.

 

You could print something in parts and then glue those there software that does the slicing and pinning, its called LUBAN, you can also use other software like fusion 360 etc.